CNN no longer the cool mom, won't let anchors get drunk on its New Year's Eve show anymore

More and more, fewer and fewer things make the coming of yet another year bearable.

On that increasingly short list has been the usually staid and serious CNN anchors putting the "mess" in messy on the cable network's New Year's Eve broadcast. But that, too, is going the way of seasonably appropriate weather.

CNN head honcho Chris Licht is cleaning up the show by restricting correspondents and anchors from drinking on and off camera, Variety reports.

The boozy shenanigans were apparently the subject of a CNN town hall staff meeting in which Licht, who took over as CEO and chairman earlier this year, told employees he felt the on-air drinking reflected badly on the credibility and "respectability" of CNN reporters.

Say what you will, but Don Lemon has never been more relatable than being six sheets to the wind and getting his ear pierced on live TV. Yet he may have left a sour taste in Licht's mouth when he added several more sheets to his sail last year, ranting that he was a "grown-ass man" who was "able to share my point of view on television and it freaks people out" and that if you don't like it, "you can kiss my behind, I do not care. I don't care."

Sooooooooo ... maybe that had something to do with this new policy. Prohibition does not apply, however, to the hosts of the New Year's Eve broadcast, Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. (Thankfully.)

Cohen can, one would assume, still get belligerently (and unapologetically) drunk while Cooper giggles the night away like a naughty child up past his bedtime. Because some things are still sacred.

CNN did not immediately respond to EW's request for comment.

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